Blastoise Just Beat Charizard As The Most Valuable Pokemon Card Ever Made
We've seen an 1st Edition Gem Mint Charizard Pokemon Card sell for over two hundred thousand dollars. That's a card that was sold to the public, available in packs of cards you could purchase at your local sports card and Magic: The Gathering card game shop. It wasn't easy to get, but it was realistically attainable (if you had the cash back then). A 1st Edition Charizard has traditionally been the most sought-after card in the entire series. As of January of 2021, a different card supplanted the dragon.
An auction run with Heritage Auctions sold a Pokemon card the likes of which might as well be the epitome of the entire Pokemon card universe. This "Galaxy star holofoil Blastoise" card was a "comissioned presentation" card made by Wizards of the Coast in 1998.
A grading presentation from CGC Grading showed four cards, each of which have a slightly different grade and/or release story. The most extravagant of these was the Blastoise with Galaxy Star Holo background – the one sold at auction this month.
The only card that might be worth more than this example is the version shown below – as shown by Wizards of the Coast Lead Typesetter Christopher Nitz. He showed an uncut sheet of test print cards from Urza's Cycle with a variety of typesetting, icons, and type placement.
According to Christopher Nitz, the Blastoise shown on this sheet is the very first English Pokemon card printed on foil! All versions of this Blastoise card were printed as test prints by Cartamundi for Wizards of the Coast as examples to show Nintendo before starting the English Pokemon CCG printing process en masse.
The Commissioned Presentation Galaxy Star Holo Blastoise was sold at auction this month with a winning bid of $360,000. That's three hundred sixty thousand dollars, the new highest bid for any Pokemon card in the history of the game.
Now, if only the original Japanese Pikachu Illustrator were put up in a bidding war VS this Blastoise and another gem mint 1st Edition Charizard – we'd see who the REAL winner was.